Articulation is the process of
evaluating courses to determine whether coursework completed at one institution
(e.g., a community college) will meet the requirements at another institution
(e.g., a university) for the purposes of admission, transferable units, general
education or major preparation. It is this
process that ensures that the classes you take at Merced Community College will
be credited toward your bachelor's degree requirements when you enter a
university.

Articulation agreements are formal, written, and published
documents that describe which coursework from the “sending” institution is
accepted as comparable to or acceptable in lieu of coursework at the “receiving”
institution. Some articulation agreements are "course-to-course agreements",
meaning that they show a specific course from one institution and the comparable
specific course from another. Other articulation agreements are "major
agreements", meaning that they show a group of courses that are acceptable to
fulfill an entire set of requirements for major preparation.

There are two resources you can use to get information about
all articulation agreements between public higher education institutions in
California, ASSIST and CAN, as described below.

ASSIST

All "segments" of the public higher education system in
California – the California Community Colleges, the California State University,
and the University of California – have agreed to have a single repository for
articulation agreements between the community colleges and the universities.
That repository is the ASSIST Web site, which is accessible to the public.

The CAN (California Articulation Numbering) System is a
limited, statewide system of common course numbering for lower-division
(freshman and sophomore) courses offered in California higher education. The
primary participants in CAN are the California Community Colleges and the
California State University.

Courses with CAN numbers or
"designators" are accepted for transfer by any participating institution as
being comparable to their course with the same CAN designator. (For example,
Merced College's ENGL 1A also has the CAN designator CAN ENGL 2 and will
transfer to Sonoma State University as comparable to their ENGL 101, which also
bears the CAN designator CAN ENGL 2.) The Merced
College Catalog and Schedule of Classes
include the CAN designator in the course description for all courses that are
accepted for the CAN System. Other institutions may list their CAN courses
separately in their catalog.

The CAN System also has a Web site at
http://www.cansystem.org/. The main feature of
the site is a list of all participating institutions and their courses that bear
CAN designators.

Of course, if at any time you need assistance with accessing
or interpreting the information in ASSIST and/or CAN, contact your Merced
College counselor.